Zoos are animals' prisons.

Would a person feel angry if he or she were in a prison for nothing? Anyone would say, "Of course!" Then why do people think that animals feel happy in zoos, which are the same as prisons? I remember once I visited Los Angeles Zoo, and I compared this zoo to what I saw in my country. I noticed a huge difference between them. In the zoo in my country, all the animals were kept in cages, while in Los Angeles Zoo they had more space to wander around. However, this is still a "prison"..."Even under the best of circumstances at the best of zoos, captivity itself is hell for animals meant to roam free" (Kaufman, 1997, p. 611K7091). People should consider this and make a right decision.

Zoos should be closed to the public. There are many other ways to teach people about the wildlife, such as TV, radio, magazines and newspapers, books in schools, and so on.

Lloyd Kaufman

Louis Kaufman

Bahnoff Zoo

As Kaufman points out, zoos "are teaching the wrong lesson -- that it is acceptable to keep animals in captivity, bored, cramped, lonely and far from their natural homes" (June 11, 1997, p. 611K7091). In zoos, a great number of people walk by each animal every day; this must irritate all the animals. For example, Morgan says that "hundreds of people [regularly] wait for the endangered giant leather-backed turtle to lay eggs", and that "their noise and flash cameras frighten turtles and interfere with the egg-laying" (1995, p. 136).

"Animals are not marketable goods to be torn from their families and homes at our will and displayed for human entertainment," says Kaufman (1997, p. 611K7091). There are several ways for middlemen to make money on an animal that has been acquired from a zoo, points out Goldston (February 11, 1999,